Kim Plofker

Kim Leslie Plofker ( born November 25, 1964) is an American historian mathematics, in particular, deals with Indian mathematics history.

Life

Plofker received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Haverford College and his PhD in 1995 from Brown University with David Pingree ( Mathematical approximation by Transformation of Sine Functions in Medieval Astronomical Sanskrit text ), where she conducted research and then later had been a guest professor. In the late 1990s she was Technical Director of the American Committee for South Asian Manuscripts of the American Oriental Society, where she also dealt with the development of programs for the text comparison. 2000 to 2004 she was at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology (MIT). 2004-2005 she was a visiting professor in Utrecht and at the same time a Fellow of the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden. She is currently a visiting professor at Union College in Schenectady.

Plofker deals with the history of Indian mathematics, what a book was published in 2008 from her, which has quickly established itself as a standard work. She is particularly interested in the exchange of mathematics and astronomy between India and Islam in the Middle Ages and generally in the exact sciences between Europe and Asia from antiquity to the 20th century.

In 2010 she gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad (Indian rules, Yavana rules: foreign identity and the transmission of mathematics ), 2011, she was awarded the Brouwer Medal.

Writings (selection )

As author

  • An example of the secant method of iterative approximation in a fifteenth century. In: Historia Mathematica. Vol 23 (1996), ISSN 0315-0860, pp. 246-256.
  • Euler and Indian Astronomy. In: Robert E. Bradley (ed.): Leonhard Euler. Life, work and legacy. ( Studies in the history and philosophy of mathematics, Vol 5). Elsevier, Amsterdam 2008, ISBN 978-0-444-52728-8, pp. 147-166.
  • Mathematics in India. In: Victor J. Katz ( Ed.): The mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India and Islam. A source book. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2007, ISBN 978-0-691-11485-9, pp. 385-514.

, as Issuer

  • With Charles Burnett Jan Hogendijk, Michio Yano (eds.): Studies in the history of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree. (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science, Vol 54). Brill, Leiden 2004, ISBN 90-04-13202-3.
Schenectady, New York Bern Dibner American Mathematical Society Integrated Authority File
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